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6 In 10 Able-Bodied Food Stamp Recipients Do Not Work At All


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2018 May 3, 9:14am   5,632 views  20 comments

by zzyzzx   ➕follow (5)   💰tip   ignore  

http://thefederalist.com/2018/05/03/6-10-able-bodied-food-stamp-recipients-not-work-change/

#deadbeats

President Trump has quietly fired the starting gun for a race toward another round of welfare reform by signing Executive Order 13828, which directs his agencies to take a deep dive toward reforming and streamlining welfare programs. The key goals: move more able-bodied adults from welfare to work, crack down on welfare fraud, and preserve resources for the truly needy.

It is a far reaching order and much needed. But the executive order is just one vehicle for reform.

The House Committee on Agriculture released its 2018 Farm Bill in April, which deals with one of America’s largest welfare programs: food stamps. America is on the precipice of another moment, a new wave of welfare reform — reform that is long overdue and, like those adopted in the 1990s, driven by state success stories.

In 2000, 17 million people were dependent on food stamps, costing taxpayers roughly $17 billion annually. By 2016, enrollment had reached 44 million, with costs exploding to $70 billion per year. Much of this growth is being driven not by seniors, poor children, or individuals with disabilities, but instead by able-bodied adults.

Under federal law, able-bodied adults who are between the ages of 18 and 50 and who have no dependents are required to work, train, or volunteer at least 20 hours per week to maintain food stamp eligibility after three months. Although work registration and optional workfare requirements have been part of federal law for many years, the 1996 welfare reform created a new time limit for able-bodied childless adults as a way to reorient the program toward work.

But the law exempts all parents and able-bodied, childless adults over 50 from these commonsense requirements. While some of these adults are subject to a separate requirement to participate in employment and training programs if assigned, few states ever assign them to such programs, rendering the requirement virtually meaningless.

If that weren’t bad enough, regulatory guidance has allowed and even encouraged states to use gimmicks and loopholes to keep as many able-bodied adults on the program as possible. These waivers, originally intended only for areas with high unemployment, have been expanded to the point of absurdity. More than a third of the nation lives in an area where work requirements are waived, despite record-low unemployment and more than six million open jobs across the country. Those loopholes let states like California — with nearly 560,000 open jobs and a record low unemployment rate — waive work requirements in every corner of the state, even in cities with unemployment rates as low as 2.1 percent.

Bureaucrats at the state and federal level have used loopholes to minimize the impact of work requirements and softened eligibility requirements. They have expanded eligibility to individuals with higher incomes and unlimited assets, to the point where millionaires and lottery winners can now qualify for the program in many states. These expansions — first adopted during the Clinton and Bush years, but supercharged during the Obama administration — have led not only to massive enrollment growth, but to a changing face of the program.

When Clinton signed welfare reform into law, he made clear that the typical family on welfare in 1996 was very different from the one whom welfare was designed to help in the early 20th century. Today’s program doesn’t even look like what was envisioned when Clinton and a Republican Congress “ended welfare as we know it.”

Seniors, poor children, and individuals with disabilities make up a smaller share of enrollment today than they did even twenty years ago. Despite near-record low unemployment and a record number of open jobs, the number of able-bodied adults on food stamps remains at a near-record 21 million.

And with no real work requirement or time limit for most of those adults, few actually work. According to data from the Department of Agriculture, fewer than one in ten able-bodied adults on food stamps work full-time jobs. A whopping 62 percent do not work at all. And while some groups focus their attention on the “welfare cliff,” which affects fewer than 250,000 able-bodied adults, the larger story goes unnoticed: nearly 13 million able-bodied adults on food stamps do not work at all.

The 1996 law was built on years of state-led efforts to reform broken cash welfare programs. Today’s welfare reform moment is no different. The changes being discussed as part of Trump’s executive order and the 2018 Farm Bill build on state success stories moving able-bodied adults from welfare to work, cracking down on welfare fraud, and protecting resources for the truly needy.

When Kansas and Maine restored work requirements for able-bodied childless adults on food stamps, they set in place an innovative tracking system to measure the reform’s success. As a result, these states tracked not just a small sample of those impacted, but every single able-bodied adult who left the program following the change — tens of thousands of them. The results were incredible.

Those leaving welfare after work requirements were implemented quickly found work, not just in retail or food service, but in more than 600 different industries. Better still, many of those who did find work in retail, food service, or temp agencies used that experience to move into more permanent, higher-paying jobs within just a few months.

More work led to higher incomes. In both states, incomes of those leaving the program more than doubled, more than offsetting the value of food stamps they lost. The average income among these working able-bodied adults is now above the poverty line. This has spurred economic growth, increased tax revenues, and preserved resources for the truly needy.

More states have since followed suit. And states like Wisconsin are leading the nation toward a new horizon: expanding the work requirement to even more able-bodied adults. In 2018, Gov. Scott Walker called a special session on welfare reform. His Wisconsin Works for Everyone plan — which quickly passed the legislature and was signed into law in April — expands work requirements to as many able-bodied adults as allowed under federal law. Parents with school-aged children and some middle-aged childless adults will now need to work or participate in a job training program to receive benefits in Wisconsin.

Congress and the Trump administration should build on these state successes to move as many able-bodied adults as possible from welfare to work. As the 2018 Farm Bill makes its way through Congress and as federal agencies begin to implement the President’s executive order, they should keep one principle in mind: able-bodied adults should move from welfare to work as quickly as possible.

That principle should drive the discussion for how to close the loopholes that let states waive existing work requirements in some or all areas. These waivers were intended only for areas with high unemployment rates — the statutory threshold is 10 percent — that otherwise lacked jobs, training programs, or volunteer opportunities. At a minimum, the waivers should return to that original purpose and only be granted in areas with unemployment rates above 10 percent.

But these waivers also create a separate problem: they ignore the unique marketable skills and labor conditions for each able-bodied adult on food stamps. The goal should be employment for as many of these adults as possible.

That principle should also drive the discussion on expanding work requirements. All able-bodied adults on food stamps who can work should work. The 1996 law mostly limited work requirements to childless adults under the age of 50, but research from other welfare programs shows work requirements are successful for all able-bodied adults. Parents and middle-aged childless adults should no longer get an automatic exemption as they do today in virtually all states. The Wisconsin reform model should be taken nationwide.

There has never been a better time for welfare reform than today. The unemployment rate is near record lows — a full percentage point lower than when Clinton signed the 1996 reforms into law. Employers are desperate for workers as they try to fill more than six million open jobs — a record high.

And the problem at hand isn’t a skills gap. It’s that too many able-bodied adults are on the sidelines. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly three-quarters of the job openings that will occur over the next decade require a high school education or less. Nearly four out of five job openings require no training or less than a month’s training on-the-job, while a whopping 87 percent require no prior experience.

America needs workers. The only way to make that happen is to move millions of able-bodied adults from welfare to work. And if Congress and Trump make that happen, they’ll surely be rewarded come election day. A whopping 82 percent of Americans support requirements that all able-bodied adults work or participate in job training programs as a condition of receiving food stamps.

The American people know — like Clinton and Robert Kennedy understood — that work has the power to transform lives. They’ve experienced it firsthand, like Lily Harden did. They know that paychecks, not government checks, lead to independence. This principle was the bedrock of the 1996 welfare reform and stands as the basis for the reforms before us now.

Comments 1 - 20 of 20        Search these comments

1   FortWayne   2018 May 3, 9:27am  

Democrats will soon scream racism to preserve hand out system.

One thing left hates the most is working for something.
2   Automan Empire   2018 May 3, 10:19am  

Nobody (left OR right) likes healthy people using the safety net as a hammock. I hope this leads to real and meaningful reforms, instead of a dog and pony show to legitimize wholesale slashing of items not budgeted to benefit billionaires.
3   Strategist   2018 May 3, 10:21am  

zzyzzx says
President Trump has quietly fired the starting gun for a race toward another round of welfare reform by signing Executive Order 13828, which directs his agencies to take a deep dive toward reforming and streamlining welfare programs. The key goals: move more able-bodied adults from welfare to work, crack down on welfare fraud, and preserve resources for the truly needy.


Can anyone tell me what's wrong with making able bodied people do some work? Is it human rights abuse?
Is mooching their God given right?
4   zzyzzx   2018 May 3, 10:29am  

Automan Empire says
Nobody (left OR right) likes healthy people using the safety net as a hammock.


No liberal I have ever met has liked the idea of welfare for perfectly healthy people. It's the people they elect that love it.
5   FuckTheMainstreamMedia   2018 May 3, 10:37am  

zzyzzx says
Automan Empire says
Nobody (left OR right) likes healthy people using the safety net as a hammock.


No liberal I have ever met has liked the idea of welfare for perfectly healthy people. It's the people they elect that love it.


Just wait for the comments about how people can’t survive on minimum wage.
6   Ceffer   2018 May 3, 10:58am  

It's a Constitutional Right to turn food into shit without labor. The Founding Fathers were lazy aristocrats with slaves and plantations, they could relate.
7   casandra   2018 May 3, 11:09am  

My niece on welfare with 4 kids just got her tax return checks from the government. She collected welfare all year long with free rent as well in a nice house in the bay area. She lives like a queen. Now she just got a check for $4,400 from the feds, and $2,600 from california when she filed her taxes and said she baby sat a bit on the side. She is considered the "working poor" by tax laws. No way now she will get a job now, and she will ALWAYS vote democrat, and why not.
8   Tenpoundbass   2018 May 3, 11:10am  

Get a job you Liberal lazy fucks, quit letting California's Mexicans take your jobs, while you suck up my Tax dollars with 10 babbies and an open Foodstamp and Rent check.

Get off your sorry asses you useless shits and quit living like a Liberal.

Stay Right or get Left.
9   MisdemeanorRebel   2018 May 3, 6:50pm  

Be happy, it could be worse like the UK or Australia.
www.youtube.com/embed/tyPfDG7aSro
10   mell   2018 May 3, 7:50pm  

casandra says
My niece on welfare with 4 kids just got her tax return checks from the government. She collected welfare all year long with free rent as well in a nice house in the bay area. She lives like a queen. Now she just got a check for $4,400 from the feds, and $2,600 from california when she filed her taxes and said she baby sat a bit on the side. She is considered the "working poor" by tax laws. No way now she will get a job now, and she will ALWAYS vote democrat, and why not.


After state taxes and every day municipal fees you easily have to give away 40%-50% of your money in taxes/fees to the government moochers in the bay area if you make ~200K/yr. It's time to end leftism and cut most welfare and government mooching. This robbery has to stop.
11   Strategist   2018 May 3, 8:03pm  

TwoScoopsOfDragonEnergy says
Be happy, it could be worse like the UK or Australia.
www.youtube.com/embed/tyPfDG7aSro


He he he.
Pay your own rent. Alternatively, trade blow jobs for rent with your landlord.
12   mell   2018 May 4, 8:04am  

Feux Follets says
Most of the savings from the plan -- which would bump 1.2 million people from the food-stamp rolls -- would be consumed by new administrative costs for the program, according to a report from the Congressional Budget Office. The analysis, released late Wednesday, examines several proposals in the farm bill, which was introduced in the House last month.


This boring and utterly unsubstantiated argument is made every time. It's a lie and is a follow-up, totally unrelated question of general administrations for such programs. If you really believed that administrative costs would make it worse then you should be arguing about abolishing government jobs altogether. Also even if some of the savings would be offset we could have clean streets is SF if you make the bums work. Win win!
13   Bd6r   2018 May 4, 8:33am  

mell says
Also even if some of the savings would be offset we could have clean streets is SF if you make the bums work. Win win!

A very good idea actually. How about tying welfare benefits to cleaning streets/highway curbs/other public spaces? US would become the cleanest country in the world.

From financial viewpoint however, savings of even 10 bn is nothing. One need to start cutting military expenses and entitlements, because everything else is peanuts.

Having said that, making welfare bums do some work is a matter of fairness. Why would someone pay taxes for the other person to actively avoid work?
14   Shaman   2018 May 4, 12:52pm  

drB6 says
very good idea actually. How about tying welfare benefits to cleaning streets/highway curbs/other public spaces? US would become the cleanest country in the world.


A “star” bum in my neighborhood has won acclaim by doing this very thing voluntarily and has a donations gofundme page.
So there’s precedence.
15   Bd6r   2018 May 4, 1:28pm  

Feux Follets says
"corporate" welfare

Ron Paul used to say that biggest welfare queens are the mega-rich, and I think he has an excellent point.
16   Shaman   2018 May 4, 1:43pm  

Feux Follets says
Out of morbid curiosity how exactly are "we" supposed to "make" someone work ? At gunpoint ?


Wasn’t it your hero, Chairman Mao, who said “All power flows out of the barrel of a gun.”

You can cut off their welfare which would cut off their ability to buy food. So they could steal instead, but that’s against the law and is enforced by police with guns.
Or you could give them the option of working first.

It doesn’t matter how much it costs to put people to work. The point IS THE WORK ITSELF! Working helps people psychologically deal with the misery of existence by giving them a purpose and a feeling of contribution to society as a whole. This engenders feelings of self worth and the worth of others in society. Which makes for less crime, safer cities, and better atmosphere.

The Socialist experiment of giving people a free living forever has already produced results: crime, generational poverty, the destruction of the family, tragically abused children, hopelessness, and horrible social culture.

The data is in. Get with the times, comrade!
17   mell   2018 May 4, 1:55pm  

Feux Follets says
Out of morbid curiosity how exactly are "we" supposed to "make" someone work ? At gunpoint ?


No gun necessary, if you don't show up for city/street or other community work, you get no benefits. every work day you show up you get partial benefits - you know, like a job the rest of us do every day.

Feux Follets says
Any chance you might include the DoD budgets in this ?

Does this also apply to "corporate" welfare ?


Yes it does.

drB6 says
Feux Follets says
"corporate" welfare

Ron Paul used to say that biggest welfare queens are the mega-rich, and I think he has an excellent point.


Not true anymore as social services are outgrowing pretty much everything else. Nonetheless a yuge problem.
18   Bd6r   2018 May 4, 5:24pm  

mell says
Not true anymore as social services are outgrowing pretty much everything else.

A lot of those programs are corporate and social welfare wrapped in one. SNAP for example is not only feeding poor people, but also a corporate handout to Big Ag. Obamacare is as much welfare to insurance companies as to uninsured. It can be even questioned who benefits more - poor people or corporations. In long run probably corporations, because without handouts to them prices would have to drop.
19   mell   2018 May 4, 5:46pm  

drB6 says
mell says
Not true anymore as social services are outgrowing pretty much everything else.

A lot of those programs are corporate and social welfare wrapped in one. SNAP for example is not only feeding poor people, but also a corporate handout to Big Ag. Obamacare is as much welfare to insurance companies as to uninsured. It can be even questioned who benefits more - poor people or corporations. In long run probably corporations, because without handouts to them prices would have to drop.


Agreed.
20   MisdemeanorRebel   2018 May 4, 6:53pm  

drB6 says
SNAP for example is not only feeding poor people, but also a corporate handout to Big Ag


And guess who administrates many SNAP programs?

Wall Street Banks.

http://prospect.org/article/how-big-banks-are-cashing-food-stamps

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